Process and Project Metrics

Software Engineering: A Practitioner’s Approach,
6/e
Chapter 22
Process and Project Metrics
copyright © 1996, 2001, 2005
R.S. Pressman & Associates, Inc.
For University Use Only

May be reproduced ONLY for student use at the university level
when used in conjunction with Software Engineering: A Practitioner's Approach.
Any other reproduction or use is expressly prohibited.
These courseware materials are to be used in conjunction with Software Engineering: A Practitioner’s Approach, 6/e and are provided with
permission by R.S. Pressman & Associates, Inc., copyright © 1996, 2001, 2005 1
A Good Manager Measures
process
process metrics
project metrics
measurement
product metrics
product
What do we
use as a
basis?
• size?
• function?
Why Do We Measure?
 assess the status of an ongoing project
 track potential risks
 uncover problem areas before they go “critical,”
 adjust work flow or tasks,
 evaluate the project team’s ability to control
quality of software work products.
Process Measurement
 We measure the efficacy of a software process indirectly.
 That is, we derive a set of metrics based on the outcomes that can be derived
from the process.
 Outcomes include
 measures of errors uncovered before release of the software
 defects delivered to and reported by end-users
 work products delivered (productivity)
 human effort expended
 calendar time expended
 schedule conformance
 other measures.
 We also derive process metrics by measuring the characteristics of specific
software engineering tasks.
Process Metrics Guidelines
 Use common sense and organizational sensitivity when interpreting metrics
data.
 Provide regular feedback to the individuals and teams who collect
measures and metrics.
 Don’t use metrics to appraise individuals.
 Work with practitioners and teams to set clear goals and metrics that will be
used to achieve them.
 Never use metrics to threaten individuals or teams.
 Metrics data that indicate a problem area should not be considered
“negative.” These data are merely an indicator for process improvement.
 Don’t obsess on a single metric to the exclusion of other important metrics.
Software Process Improvement
Process model
Process improvement
Improvement goals recommendations
Process metrics SPI
Process Metrics
 Quality-related
 focus on quality of work products and deliverables
 Productivity-related
 Production of work-products related to effort expended
 Statistical SQA data
 error categorization & analysis
 Defect removal efficiency
 propagation of errors from process activity to activity
 Reuse data
 The number of components produced and their degree of reusability
Project Metrics
 used to minimize the development schedule by making the adjustments necessary to
avoid delays and mitigate potential problems and risks
 used to assess product quality on an ongoing basis and, when necessary, modify the
technical approach to improve quality.
 every project should measure:
 inputs—measures
inputs—measures of the resources (e.g., people, tools) required to do the work.
 outputs—measures
outputs—measures of the deliverables or work products created during the software
engineering process.
 results—measures
results—measures that indicate the effectiveness of the deliverables.
Typical Project Metrics
 Effort/time per software engineering task
 Errors uncovered per review hour
 Scheduled vs. actual milestone dates
 Changes (number) and their characteristics
 Distribution of effort on software engineering
tasks
Metrics Guidelines
 Use common sense and organizational sensitivity when interpreting
metrics data.
 Provide regular feedback to the individuals and teams who have worked
to collect measures and metrics.
 Don’t use metrics to appraise individuals.
 Work with practitioners and teams to set clear goals and metrics that will
be used to achieve them.
 Never use metrics to threaten individuals or teams.
 Metrics data that indicate a problem area should not be considered
“negative.” These data are merely an indicator for process improvement.
 Don’t obsess on a single metric to the exclusion of other important
metrics.
Typical Size-Oriented
Metrics
 errors per KLOC (thousand lines of code)
 defects per KLOC
 $ per LOC
 pages of documentation per KLOC
 errors per person-month
 Errors per review hour
 LOC per person-month
 $ per page of documentation
Typical Function-Oriented Metrics
 errors per FP (thousand lines of code)

 defects per FP
 $ per FP
 pages of documentation per FP
 FP per person-month
Comparing LOC and FP
Programming LOC per Function point
Language avg. median low high
Ada 154 - 104 205
Assembler 337 315 91 694
C 162 109 33 704
C++ 66 53 29 178
COBOL 77 77 14 400
Java 63 53 77 -
JavaScript 58 63 42 75
Perl 60 - - -
PL/1 78 67 22 263
Powerbuilder 32 31 11 105
SAS 40 41 33 49
Smalltalk 26 19 10 55
SQL 40 37 7 110
Visual Basic 47 42 16 158
Representative values developed by QSM
Why Opt for FP?
 Programming language independent
 Used readily countable characteristics that are
determined early in the software process
 Does not “penalize” inventive (short) implementations
that use fewer LOC that other more clumsy versions
 Makes it easier to measure the impact of reusable
components
Object-Oriented Metrics
 Number of scenario scripts (use-cases)
 Number of support classes (required
( to implement the
system but are not immediately related to the problem
domain)
 Average number of support classes per key class
(analysis class)
 Number of subsystems (an aggregation of classes that
support a function that is visible to the end-user of a
system)
WebE Project Metrics
 Number of static Web pages (the end-user has no control over the content
displayed on the page)
 Number of dynamic Web pages (end-user actions result in customized
content displayed on the page)
 Number of internal page links (internal page links are pointers that provide
a hyperlink to some other Web page within the WebApp)
 Number of persistent data objects
 Number of external systems interfaced
 Number of static content objects
 Number of dynamic content objects
 Number of executable functions
Measuring Quality
 Correctness — the degree to which a program operates
according to specification
 Maintainability—the degree to which a program is
amenable to change
 Integrity—the degree to which a program is impervious
to outside attack
 Usability—the degree to which a program is easy to use
Defect Removal Efficiency
DRE = E /(E + D)
E is the number of errors found before delivery of

the software to the end-user
D is the number of defects found after delivery.
Metrics for Small Organizations
 time (hours or days) elapsed from the time a request is made until
evaluation is complete, tqueue.
 effort (person-hours) to perform the evaluation, Weval.
 time (hours or days) elapsed from completion of evaluation to assignment
of change order to personnel, teval.
 effort (person-hours) required to make the change, Wchange.
 time required (hours or days) to make the change, tchange.
 errors uncovered during work to make change, Echange.
 defects uncovered after change is released to the customer base, Dchange.
Establishing a Metrics Program
 Identify your business goals.
 Identify what you want to know or learn.
 Identify your subgoals.
 Identify the entities and attributes related to your subgoals.
 Formalize your measurement goals.
 Identify quantifiable questions and the related indicators that you will use
to help you achieve your measurement goals.
 Identify the data elements that you will collect to construct the indicators
that help answer your questions.
 Define the measures to be used, and make these definitions operational.
 Identify the actions that you will take to implement the measures.
 Prepare a plan for implementing the measures.

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Software Engineering: A Practitioner’s Approach,

For University Use Only

Process metrics SPI

 errors per FP (thousand lines of code)

Representative values developed by QSM

E is the number of errors found before delivery of

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